Techniques for creating dynamic game activities for games

ABSTRACT

A technique for dynamically generating game activities for a game (e.g., a role-playing game) includes loading game information about the game into a data processing system (e.g., a question answering system). Context data (e.g., a question) is received from a client (e.g., a player of the game, a user of the game, another system, or a game engine). In response to receiving the context data, a game activity is dynamically generated based on the context data and the game information. The game activity is then initiated in the game and presented to the client.

BACKGROUND

The present disclosure is generally directed to games and, morespecifically, to techniques for creating dynamic game activities forgames, such as role-playing games, using a data processing system, suchas a cognitive system or a question answering system.

Watson is a question answering (QA) system (i.e., a data processingsystem) that applies advanced natural language processing, informationretrieval, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, and machinelearning technologies to the field of open domain question answering. Ingeneral, document search technology receives a keyword query and returnsa list of documents, ranked in order of relevance to the query (oftenbased on popularity and page ranking). In contrast, QA technologyreceives a question expressed in natural language, seeks to understandthe question in greater detail than document search technology, andreturns a precise answer to the question.

The Watson system reportedly employs more than one-hundred differentalgorithms to analyze natural language, identify sources, find andgenerate hypotheses, find and score evidence, and merge and rankhypotheses. The Watson system implements DeepQA™ software and theApache™ unstructured information management architecture (UIMA)framework. Software for the Watson system is written in variouslanguages, including Java, C++, and Prolog, and runs on the SUSE™ LinuxEnterprise Server 11 operating system using the Apache Hadoop™ frameworkto provide distributed computing. As is known, Apache Hadoop is anopen-source software framework for storage and large-scale processing ofdatasets on clusters of commodity hardware.

The Watson system employs DeepQA software to generate hypotheses, gatherevidence (data), and analyze the gathered data. The Watson system isworkload optimized and integrates massively parallel POWER7® processors.The Watson system includes a cluster of ninety IBM Power 750 servers,each of which includes a 3.5 GHz POWER7 eight core processor, with fourthreads per core. In total, the Watson system has 2,880 POWER7 processorcores and has 16 terabytes of random access memory (RAM). Reportedly,the Watson system can process 500 gigabytes, the equivalent of onemillion books, per second. Sources of information for the Watson systeminclude encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, newswire articles, andliterary works. The Watson system also uses databases, taxonomies, andontologies.

Cognitive systems learn and interact naturally with people to extendwhat either a human or a machine could do on their own. Cognitivesystems help human experts make better decisions by penetrating thecomplexity of ‘Big Data’. Cognitive systems build knowledge and learn adomain (i.e., language and terminology, processes and preferred methodsof interacting) over time. Unlike conventional expert systems, whichhave required rules to be hard coded into an expert system by a humanexpert, cognitive systems can process natural language and unstructureddata and learn by experience, similar to how humans learn. Whilecognitive systems have deep domain expertise, instead of replacing humanexperts, cognitive systems act as a decision support system to helphuman experts make better decisions based on the best available data invarious areas (e.g., healthcare, finance, or customer service).

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) mix the genresof role-playing games and massively multiplayer online games (e.g., inthe form of web browser-based video games) in which a very large numberof players interact with one another within a virtual world (VW). As inall role-playing games (RPGs), a player assumes the role of a character(often in a fantasy world) and takes control over many actions of thecharacter. MMORPGs may be distinguished from single-player or smallmulti-player online RPGs by the number of players and by the persistenceof the VW (which is usually hosted by a game publisher and continues toexist and evolve when individual players are offline and not playing thegame).

Basic characteristics of modern MMORPGs may include: a persistent gameenvironment; some form of progressive social interaction within thegame; in-game culture; system architecture; membership in a group; andcharacter customization. The majority of popular MMORPGs are based ontraditional fantasy themes, often occurring in an in-game universe(e.g., Dungeons & Dragons™). Some MMORPGs employ hybrid themes thateither merge or substitute fantasy elements with those of sciencefiction, sorcery, or crime fiction. Still other MMORPGs draw thematicmaterial from comic books, the occult, and other genres. Often elementsof thematic material are developed using similar tasks and scenariosthat involve quests, monsters, and treasure. In nearly all MMORPGs, thedevelopment of a player's character is a primary goal. Unfortunately,conventional MMORPGs are static in that game development requiresfurther input from a game designer.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Disclosed are a method, a data processing system, and a computer programproduct (embodied in a computer-readable storage device) for creatingdynamic game activities for games, such as role-playing games.

A technique for dynamically generating game activities for a game (e.g.,a role-playing game) includes loading game information about the gameinto a data processing system (e.g., a question answering system).Context data (e.g., a question) is received from a client (e.g., aplayer of the game, a user of the game, another system, or a gameengine). In response to receiving the context data, a game activity isdynamically generated based on the context data and the gameinformation. The game activity is then initiated in the game andpresented to the client.

The above summary contains simplifications, generalizations andomissions of detail and is not intended as a comprehensive descriptionof the claimed subject matter but, rather, is intended to provide abrief overview of some of the functionality associated therewith. Othersystems, methods, functionality, features and advantages of the claimedsubject matter will be or will become apparent to one with skill in theart upon examination of the following figures and detailed writtendescription.

The above as well as additional objectives, features, and advantages ofthe present invention will become apparent in the following detailedwritten description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The description of the illustrative embodiments is to be read inconjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a diagram of an exemplary high performance computing (HPC)cluster that includes a number of nodes, with one or more of the nodesincluding multiple processors that are configured to create dynamic gameactivities for games (e.g., role-playing games (RPGs)), according tovarious aspects of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a relevant portion of an exemplary symmetricmultiprocessor (SMP) data processing system included in one of the nodesof FIG. 1, according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 depicts relevant components of an exemplary data processingsystem pipeline in the form of a question answering (QA) systempipeline;

FIG. 4 depicts relevant components of the exemplary QA system pipelineof FIG. 3 in additional detail;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of an exemplary process for creating dynamic gameactivities for games, according to one aspect of the present disclosure;and

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of another exemplary process for creating dynamicgame activities for games, according to another aspect of the presentdisclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The illustrative embodiments provide a method, a data processing system,and a computer program product (embodied in a computer-readable storagedevice) for creating dynamic content (e.g., game activities) for games,e.g., role-playing games (RPGs).

In the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments of theinvention, specific exemplary embodiments in which the invention may bepracticed are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled inthe art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that otherembodiments may be utilized and that logical, architectural,programmatic, mechanical, electrical and other changes may be madewithout departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention. Thefollowing detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in alimiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined by theappended claims and equivalents thereof.

It is understood that the use of specific component, device and/orparameter names are for example only and not meant to imply anylimitations on the invention. The invention may thus be implemented withdifferent nomenclature/terminology utilized to describe thecomponents/devices/parameters herein, without limitation. Each termutilized herein is to be given its broadest interpretation given thecontext in which that term is utilized. As may be utilized herein, theterm ‘coupled’ encompasses a direct electrical connection betweencomponents or devices and an indirect electrical connection betweencomponents or devices achieved using one or more intervening componentsor devices. As used herein, the terms ‘data’ and ‘evidence’ areinterchangeable.

Nearly all massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)feature a character progression system in which players earn experiencepoints for their actions and use the experience points to reachcharacter levels that make a character better at whatever the characterdoes. Traditionally, combat with other characters and completing questsfor non-player characters (NPCs), either alone or in groups, have beenthe primary ways to earn experience points in most MMORPGs. MMORPGs mayalso require a player to work with other players in order to progress atan optimal rate. For example, a player may need to trade items withother players to achieve certain goals or team-up with other players tokill a powerful enemy. In at least some MMORPGs, character progressionis based on the accumulation of wealth (including combat-useful items)and has traditionally been accomplished via combat. The cycle of combatleading to new items that allow for more combat with no change in gameplay has sometimes been pejoratively referred to as ‘grinding’. In someMMORPGs, there is no limit to player levels, which allows the ‘grinding’experience to continue indefinitely.

In contrast, other MMORPGs set a maximum player level for all players.In MMORPGs that set a maximum player level, a definition of playerprogression usually changes when the maximum player level is attained.For example, instead of being rewarded primarily with experience forcompleting quests, collecting money and equipment may motivate a playerto continue playing. Often, the equipment available at a maximum playerlevel (i.e., endgame gear) has increased aesthetic value to distinguishhigh-ranking players in a game. The endgame gear may include empoweredweapons and armor that adds a competitive edge to both scriptedencounters, as well as player versus player combat.

MMORPGs generally provide tools to facilitate communication betweenplayers. Many MMORPGs offer support for in-game guilds or clans. Tasksthat require teamwork usually require players to take on roles in agroup, e.g., protecting other players from damage (referred to as‘tanking’), healing damage done to other players, or damaging enemies.In general, relationships created in MMORPG VWs are similar to thosecreated in the physical world. Most MMORPGs provide different types ofclasses that players can choose. Among those classes, a small portion ofplayers choose to role play their characters according to game rulesthat provide functionality and content. Guilds or similar groups with afocus on role-playing may develop extended in-depth narratives using thesetting and resources of the game VW. Most MMORPGs have social rules forsuch things as invitations to join an adventuring party, the properdivision of treasure, and how a player is expected to behave whilegrouped with other players.

Most MMORPGs are deployed using a client-server system architecture. Theserver software generates a persistent instance of the VW that runscontinuously with players connecting to the server software via clientsoftware. The client software may provide access to the an entire VW orextensions may be required to be purchased to allow access to certainareas of a game. Depending on the number of players and the systemarchitecture, an MMORPG may actually run on multiple separate serverswith each separate server representing an independent VW, where playersfrom one server cannot interact with those from another server. MMORPGsalso generally have game moderators (GMs) that attempt to supervise avirtual world (VW). Some GMs may have access to features and informationrelated to the game that are not available to other players.

Conventionally, game literature has only provided a backstory on anassociated game. That is, game literature (information) has not beenutilized to generate dynamic game activities to make an associated gamemore engaging (thus, avoiding ‘grinding’). Traditionally, when astory-line of a game is changed, a game designer has been required toadd/modify events associated with the changed story-line. According toaspects of the present disclosure, a game designer is not required toadd/modify events as game design activities and scenarios are generatedby loading game information into a data processing system (e.g., aquestion answering system or a cognitive system) and correlating gamemodels to produce game activities within a game environment in real-time(e.g., during game play or at design time) responsive to received player(or designer) questions. More broadly, a question may correspond tocontext data and a player may correspond to a client (e.g., a gamedesigner, a user, a player, a game moderator, another system, or a gameengine). Context data may correspond to, for example, any input receivedfrom a client. In general, a game engine associated with a game may beupdated to create a representation of a game activity in response to adata processing system receiving context data from a client.

According to one or more embodiments of the present disclosure, analysisand extraction of key game characteristics is performed and actions andobjects are correlated with locations to produce actionable quests fromnatural language questions and correlated structured data associatedwith the questions. In this manner, game scenarios can be dynamicallygenerated by loading game information (e.g., backstory, literature,design documents) into a data processing system and correlating gamemodels (e.g., attributes and maps) to produce game activities (e.g.,quests) within a game environment. In general, the disclosed techniquesfacilitate generating novel game content based on game information andcontext data provided by a client of a game. Disclosed techniques alsofacilitate dynamically generating quests to vary player experiencesoutside of canned quests that are initially built into a game by a gamedesigner. More generally, the disclosed techniques facilitate mappinggame literature to actionable items in a virtual environment (e.g.,augmented reality, gaming environment, or virtual world (VW)) to produceactionable or informative information that is location and playercontext aware.

As one example, an augmented reality scenario may include a personwalking down a street of New York City (NYC) playing an augmentedreality game about building a business in NYC. The game context datareceived by a game system may correspond to the person's location andproximity to, for example, a restaurant. In this case, game informationmay include activities associated with investigating food prices,building a competitive menu, and establishing a feasible square footagefor a restaurant competitor. A dynamically generated game activity maycorrespond to, for example, an observe quest and a find quest. Agenerated observe quest may be for a player to journey to a restaurantthat is in proximity of the player and for the player to walk aroundwith location services enabled on their mobile device to map therestaurant. A find quest may correspond to finding one item on a menu ofthe restaurant menu for submission. The player may then be presentedwith various quests that include associated activities the playerperforms. The activities may be tracked by the game to determine whetherestablished goals are achieved. Goals may have corresponding rewards(e.g., points or game dollars) that are awarded to the player forachieving the goals in building a business through competition analysisin the augmented reality game.

According to at least one embodiment, natural language informationassociated with a game (e.g., backstory, story boards, a novel, rules,point systems, design documents, locations, and maps) is loaded into adata processing system. The natural language information provides acollection from which certain quest types may be generated. Quest typesthat can be generated by an evidence based probabilistic system, andplayer context information may then be generated. For example, questtypes may include fetching, delivering, exploring, and learning. Foreach of the quest types, a player's current context (in game knowledge)and loaded game information may be used to generate a quest thatincludes a game activity, a location, and text describing an action thatthe player is to perform (e.g., based on player interaction with anon-player character (NPC)).

As one example, a player may interact with an NPC and (based onassociated game information related to that player) the player mayreceive hints on key events, characters, items, and locations associatedwith the NPC. A player may also be provided with a game designedbackstory for the player's character. The player may also free form anatural language question for the NPC about any of the key ‘hints’ orinformation in the backstory or based on the player's knowledge of gamein multiple forms. For example, a natural language question may takevarious forms (Who is ‘A’?, What is ‘B’?, When is ‘C’?, Where is ‘D’?,Why is ‘E’?, etc.).

According to various aspects, game information is loaded into a dataprocessing system (e.g., a QA system) for processing. Locations found inthe game information are annotated and associated with characters foundin the game information. Importance levels for characters may bedesignated based on, for example, character titles (King. Lord,Governor, President, leader, etc.) and a relationship of the charactersto other referenced characters. Ownership of key items and rewards mayalso be associated with specific characters in the game literature. Gamelocations that are defined, but not clearly designated by the gameinformation, may be designated by, for example, an expert. The locationsmay then be associated with characters and events. Locations may, forexample, be designated with acceptable ranges for character levels.According to one aspect, for each character an answer key and supportingevidence is generated for a number of question types (e.g., Who is‘character name’?, Where does ‘character name’ exist?, Where did ‘eventname’ occur?, Where is ‘item name’?, and Who owns ‘item name’?).

In one or more embodiments, based on generated answers that have highconfidence and direct or indirect supporting evidence, actionable gamingactivities (e.g., in the form of quests) are generated. As examples, aquest may require: finding ‘character name’ in ‘location’ and retrievingan ‘owned item’; delivering a ‘current character item’ to a different‘other associated character’ in a ‘location’; and observing a‘location’. According to various aspects of the present disclosure, whena question is received from a player, a focus and lexical answer type(LAT) of the question may be determined and compared to verify the focusand LAT match one or more categories for a quest. Sentence examples mayalso be generated based on the LAT. Associated game quest content maythen be generated in game format for the generated sentence. Forexample, a quest type may include: fetching; delivering; locating,retrieving, and observing (during a particular time period). In variousembodiments, the game content includes a received question text.

In one or more embodiments, a reward associated with a quest may belocated in a rewards bank. Points and experience for completing a questmay be based on a location level range, quest type, and/or an NPCengaged. A reward may also be conditioned based on the quest type. Forexample, a reward may be conditioned on a player looting an item oritems, the player reaching a designated location, and/or the playerinteracting with an object and/or an NPC. In various embodiments, aplayer is dynamically presented with a quest to accept with a locationand a designated activity to perform. In the event the player acceptsthe quest and is able to perform one or more desired actions to completethe quest, rewards associated with the quest are awarded.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, triggers may bepublished based on ambient events at a location that are randomized foreach character in view of associated game information and/or location.For example, an event at a location may correspond to animal (e.g.,bear) tracks appearing at a location or a familiar smell (e.g.,associated with a plant). According to one or more embodiments, ambientevents are generated on a periodic basis based on game information. Forexample, if the game information dictates that citizens of Village ‘F’live in constant fear of jackal attacks at night, jackals or attackevidence may be randomly generated when a player passes through Village‘F’ at night. In this case, for a location corresponding to Village ‘F’,a generated activity type may correspond to ‘fear’ and associatedobjects may correspond to ‘jackals’. In general, based on location,activity ontology, and associated objects, entity types in a vicinity ofthe location may be randomly spawned to create the activity. In atypical embodiment, population density and mobile type (i.e., an entityor character in the game) may be controlled to prevent the gameenvironment from being overpopulated. For example, if an activitycorresponds to the citizens of Village ‘F’ picking apples, an activitymay be generated that provides the object type while randomizinglocations in the vicinity of the Village ‘F’ to prevent a gameenvironment from being overpopulated.

In one embodiment, a game universe (e.g., backstory, story, rules,points, locations, and maps) is loaded into a QA system. A player canthen present a question to the QA system and the QA system eitherreturns an answer (or answers) or generates a quest (or quests) based onthe question. For example, a question may be “Who is ‘Z’?” An answerprovided by the QA system may be dependent on a player level. As oneexample, at level 10 the QA system may reply “I've heard he is awizard.” At level 20 the QA system may reply “I've heard he is a wizardin a dark place.” At level 30 the QA system may reply “Go get a key atlocation ‘XYZ’ and then go to ‘Z’ in the castle.” It should beappreciated that quests other than fetch and deliver may be dynamicallyimplemented. As an example, assume a player observes some tracks on theground at a game location, the player may ask an NPC a free-formquestion, such as “What are these tracks?” or if the player recognizedthe tracks are goblin tracks “Why are there goblin tracks here?”According to various aspects of the present disclosure, a player is notrestricted to canned dialogue when providing questions to a QA system.

Conventionally, the Watson system has explored large amounts ofstructured and unstructured data to find candidate answers for aquestion (or a problem). According to various aspects of the presentdisclosure, techniques for performing high performance computing (HPC),or network computing, are described herein that create dynamic gameactivities for games, e.g., role-playing games (RPGs) and puzzles. Withreference to FIG. 1, an example topology for a relevant portion of anexemplary HPC cluster (supercomputer) 100 includes a number of nodes(N1-N18) that are connected in, for example, a three-dimensional (3D)Torus topology. Each of the nodes (N1-N18) may include one or moresymmetric multiprocessors (SMPs). While eighteen nodes are illustratedin FIG. 1, it should be appreciated that more or less than eighteennodes may be present in an HPC cluster configured according to thepresent disclosure.

With reference to FIG. 2, each of the nodes N1-N18 of FIG. 1 may includea processor system, such as data processing system 200. As isillustrated, data processing system 200 includes one or more chip-levelmultiprocessors (CMPs) 202 (only one of which is illustrated in FIG. 2),each of which includes multiple (e.g., eight) processors 204. Processors204 may, for example, operate in a simultaneous multithreading (SMT)mode or a single thread (ST) mode. When processors 204 operate in theSMT mode, processors 204 may employ multiple separate instruction fetchaddress registers to store program counters for multiple threads.

In at least one embodiment, processors 204 each include a first level(L1) cache (not separately shown in FIG. 2) that is coupled to a sharedsecond level (L2) cache 206, which is in turn coupled to a shared thirdlevel (L3) cache 214. The L1, L2, and L3 caches may be combinedinstruction and data caches or correspond to separate instruction anddata caches. In the illustrated embodiment, L2 cache 206 is furthercoupled to a fabric controller 208 that is coupled to a main memorycontroller (e.g., included in a Northbridge) 210, which supports a mainmemory subsystem 212 that, in various embodiments, includes anapplication appropriate amount of volatile and non-volatile memory. Inalternative embodiments, fabric controller 208 may be omitted and, inthis case, L2 cache 206 may be directly connected to main memorycontroller 210.

Fabric controller 208, when implemented, facilitates communicationbetween different CMPs and between processors 204 and memory subsystem212 and, in this manner, functions as an interface. As is further shownin FIG. 2, main memory controller 210 is also coupled to an I/O channelcontroller (e.g., included in a Southbridge) 216, which is coupled to ahost channel adapter (HCA)/switch block 218. HCA/switch block 218includes an HCA and one or more switches that may be utilized to coupleCMP 202 to CMPs in other nodes (e.g., I/O subsystem nodes and processornodes) of HPC cluster 100.

FIG. 3 illustrates relevant components of a question answering systempipeline for an exemplary QA system. As is illustrated in FIG. 3, aquestion and context analysis block 302 of QA system pipeline 300receives a question (e.g., in the form of a question summary context) asan input and generates an output representing its analysis of thequestion and the context of the question. A candidate generation block304 of QA system pipeline 300 receives the output from question andcontext analysis block 302 at an input and generates candidate answersfor the question. The candidate answers are provided to an input of ananswer scoring block 306, which is configured to initiate a supportingevidence search (by supporting evidence search block 308) in order toscore the various generated answers. The results of the answer scoringare provided to a final answer block 310, which is configured to providea final answer to the question based on the scoring of the candidateanswers. It should be appreciated that blocks 302-310 may be implementedin program code executing on one or more processor cores or may bedirectly implemented in dedicated hardware (logic).

FIG. 4 illustrates relevant components of an exemplary QA systempipeline in additional detail. As is illustrated, question and analysiscontext block 402 receives a question in a natural language. An outputof block 402 is provided to a question decomposition block 404, whichfurther analyzes the different textual, grammatical, linguistic,punctuation and/or other components of the question. Block 404 providesinputs to multiple hypothesis generation blocks 406, which performparallel hypothesis generation. Hypothesis generation blocks 406 eachperform a primary search, collect reference data from differentstructured and unstructured sources, and generate candidate answers. Forexample, data generated by hypothesis ‘i’ may be referenced as ‘D_i’,and data generated by hypothesis ‘j’ may be referenced as ‘D_j’. Thedata ‘D_i’ and ‘D_j’ may be the same data, completely different data, ormay include overlapping data.

As one example, a QA system may be configured, according to the presentdisclosure, to: receive a question; create ‘N’ hypotheses (1 . . . N) tofind candidate answers (e.g., N=10); and load data for each hypothesis‘i’ on which to operate into a shared cache. For example, assuming ashared cache across all hypotheses, 1/Nth of the shared cache may beloaded with data for each hypothesis to operate on. The QA system may befurther configured to execute the ‘N’ hypotheses to return ‘M’ candidateanswers (in this case, each hypothesis generates one or more candidateanswers). For example, the notation ‘ANS_i’ may be employed to denote aset of candidate answers generated by hypothesis ‘i’. In variousembodiments, hypothesis and evidence scoring for each hypothesis isinitiated in hypothesis and evidence scoring blocks 408. That is, the QAsystem is further configured to score all the candidate answers usinghypothesis and evidence scoring techniques (e.g., providing ‘M’ scoresfor ‘M’ candidate answers). In synthesis block 410 the QA systemevaluates the candidate answers with the highest scores and determineswhich hypotheses generated the highest scores.

Following block 410, the QA system initiates final confidence mergingand ranking in block 412. Finally, in block 412, the QA system providesan answer (and may provide a confidence score) to the question.Assuming, for example, the candidate answers ‘j’, ‘k’, and ‘l’ have thehighest scores, a determination may then be made as to which of thehypotheses generated the best candidate answers. As one example, assumethat hypotheses ‘c’ and ‘d’ generated the best candidate answers ‘j’,‘k’, and ‘l’. The QA system may then upload additional data required byhypotheses ‘c’ and ‘d’ into the cache and unload data used by otherhypotheses from the cache. According to the present disclosure, thepriority of what data is uploaded is relative to candidate scores (assuch, hypotheses producing lower scores have less associated data incache). When a new question is received, the above-described process isrepeated. If the hypotheses ‘c’ and ‘d’ again produce best candidateanswers, the QA system loads more data that is relevant to thehypotheses ‘c’ and ‘d’ into the cache and unloads other data.

If, on the other hand, hypotheses ‘h’ and ‘g’ produce the best candidateanswers to the new question, the QA system loads more data relevant tothe hypotheses ‘h’ and ‘g’ into the cache and unloads other data. Itshould be appreciated that, at this point, hypotheses ‘c’ and ‘d’probably still have more data in the cache than other hypotheses, asmore relevant data was previously loaded into the cache for thehypotheses ‘c’ and ‘d’. According to the present disclosure, the overallprocess repeats in the above-described manner by basically maintainingdata in the cache that answer and evidence scoring indicates is mostuseful. The disclosed process may be unique to a QA system when a cachecontroller is coupled directly to an answer and evidence scoringmechanism of a QA system.

With reference to FIG. 5 a process 500 for dynamically generatingcontent for a role-playing game using a question answering system,according to an embodiment of the present disclosure, is illustrated. Itshould be appreciated that process 500 may be generalized to virtuallyany online game. Process 500 may be implemented, for example, throughthe execution of one or more program modules (that are configured tofunction as a dynamic game activity generation engine) by one or moreprocessors 204 of data processing system 200.

Process 500 may, for example, be initiated in block 502 in response to aplayer initiating game play via data processing system 200. Next, inblock 504, data processing system 200 loads game information into itsmemory system (e.g., L2 cache 206). Then, in block 506, data processingsystem 200 receives a player question. It should be appreciated that aquestion may be directed to virtually any aspect of a game (e.g., who,what, when, where, why and/or how). Next, in block 508, data processingsystem 200 dynamically generates a game activity based on the loadedgame information and the received question (or more broadly contextdata). In one or more embodiments, dynamic game activity generation mayinclude: parsing and annotating entities in text; associating entitiesto each other through deep semantic relationships; and associating gameinformation with the entities to facilitate using the entities asevidence or candidate answers in a question answering system.

In various embodiments, entities may include: characters associated witha client; NPCs; places (derived both from context data and gameinformation text); and relationships derived from semantic relationshipsin the game information text and the context data. Game informationincludes activities that can be derived from the entities. For example,data processing system 200 may score candidate answers generated fromhypotheses associated with the received question, as described abovewith reference to FIGS. 3-4, to determine what answer to utilize ingenerating dynamic game activities for the player. It should beappreciated that one or more candidate answers may be generated for eachof the hypotheses, based on the evidence loaded into L2 cache 206.

Next, in block 509, activity data created for a game system may bestored in a database and associated with a client. Then, in block 510,data processing system 200 presents the game activity to the player. Forexample, the game activity may correspond to a quest. As one example, ifthe player question was “How do I get to location ‘A’?” the quest mayprovide instructions, based on a highest scored answer, on how to get tolocation ‘A’ and direct the player to go to location “A” and retrieve anobject ‘B’ and take the object ‘B’ to location ‘C’ based on the loadedgame information and the question. As another example, if the playerquestion was “Where is the dragon?” the quest may provide instructions,based on a highest scored answer, on how to get to location ‘A’ wherethe dragon is currently located and direct the player to go to location“A” and slay the dragon based on the loaded game information and thequestion.

Next, in decision block 512, data processing system 200 determineswhether the player has accepted the presented game activity. In responseto the player not accepting the game activity (e.g., as indicated by theplayer not beginning the quest within a predetermined time), controltransfers from block 512 to block 506. In response to the playeraccepting the game activity (e.g., as indicated by the player beginningthe quest within a predetermined time) in block 512, control transfersfrom block 512 to block 514, where process 500 terminates until theplayer, for example, completes a current quest and re-initiates gameplay.

With reference to FIG. 6 a process 600 for dynamically generatingcontent for a role-playing game using a question answering system,according to other aspects of the present disclosure, is illustrated. Itshould be appreciated that process 600 may be generalized to virtuallyany online game. Process 600 may be implemented, for example, throughthe execution of one or more program modules (that are configured tofunction as a dynamic game activity generation engine) by one or moreprocessors 204 of data processing system 200.

Process 600 may, for example, be initiated in block 602 in response to aplayer initiating game play via data processing system 200. As above, aquestion (or more broadly context data) may be directed to virtually anyaspect of a game (e.g., who, what, when, where, why and/or how). Next,in block 604, data processing system 200 loads game information into itsmemory system (e.g., L2 cache 206). Then, in block 606, data processingsystem 200 receives a player question and a player context inassociation with the player question. For example, the player contextmay correspond to a current player level and/or a character assigned tothe player. Additionally, player context data can be the location of thecharacter, the location of the actual user of the character, the currentgame state, and/or the current character interactions with NPCs andtheir environment. Next, in block 608, data processing system 200dynamically generates a game activity based on the loaded gameinformation, the received question, and the player context.

In one or more embodiments, the dynamic game activity generation mayinclude: parsing and annotating entities in text; associating entitiesto each other through deep semantic relationships; and associating gameinformation with the entities to facilitate using the entities asevidence or candidate answers in a question/answer system. As above,entities may, for example, include: characters associated with a client;NPCs; places (derived both from context data and game information text);and relationships derived from semantic relationships in the gameinformation text and the context data. Game information includesactivities that can be derived from the entities. For example, dataprocessing system 200 may score candidate answers generated fromhypotheses associated with the received question, as described abovewith reference to FIGS. 3-4, to determine what answer to utilize ingenerating dynamic game activity for the player. It should beappreciated that one or more candidate answers may be generated for eachof the hypotheses, based on the evidence loaded into L2 cache 206.

Next, in block 609, activity data created for a game system may bestored in a database and associated with a client. Then, in block 610,data processing system 200 presents, e.g., via a web browser, the gameactivity to the player. For example, the game activity may correspond totext or a quest. For example, if the player question was “How do I getto location ‘G’?” a quest may provide instructions, based on a highestscored answer, on how to get to location ‘G’ and direct the player to goto location “G” and engage an object ‘H’ (e.g., a wizard) in combatbased on the loaded game information, the received question, and theplayer context. As another example, if the player question was “Where isthe princess?” the quest may provide instructions, based on a highestscored answer, on how to get to location ‘J’ where the princess is beingheld against her will and direct the player to go to location “J” andrescue the princess based on the loaded game information, the receivedquestion, and the player context.

Next, in decision block 612, data processing system 200 determineswhether the player has accepted the presented game activity. In responseto the player not accepting the game activity (e.g., as indicated by theplayer not beginning the quest within a predetermined time), controltransfers from block 612 to block 606. In response to the playeraccepting the game activity (e.g., as indicated by the player beginningthe quest within a predetermined time) in block 612, control transfersfrom block 612 to block 614, where process 600 terminates until theplayer, for example, completes a current quest and re-initiates gameplay.

Accordingly, techniques have been disclosed herein that advantageouslydynamically generate content for a game, e.g., a role-playing game, inorder to make the game more engaging.

The present invention may be a system, a method, and/or a computerprogram product. The computer program product may include a computerreadable storage medium (or media) having computer readable programinstructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of thepresent invention.

The computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that canretain and store instructions for use by an instruction executiondevice. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but isnot limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device,an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, asemiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of thecomputer readable storage medium includes the following: a portablecomputer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), aread-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROMor Flash memory), a static random access memory (SRAM), a portablecompact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk (DVD),a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such aspunch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructionsrecorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. Acomputer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construedas being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freelypropagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagatingthrough a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulsespassing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmittedthrough a wire.

Computer readable program instructions described herein can bedownloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computerreadable storage medium or to an external computer or external storagedevice via a network, for example, the Internet, a local area network, awide area network and/or a wireless network. The network may comprisecopper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers. A network adapter card or network interface in eachcomputing/processing device receives computer readable programinstructions from the network and forwards the computer readable programinstructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium withinthe respective computing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations ofthe present invention may be assembler instructions,instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions,machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions,state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in anycombination of one or more programming languages, including an objectoriented programming language such as Smalltalk, C++ or the like, andconventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C”programming language or similar programming languages. The computerreadable program instructions may execute entirely on the user'scomputer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone softwarepackage, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computeror entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario,the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through anytype of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer(for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).In some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example,programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), orprogrammable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readableprogram instructions by utilizing state information of the computerreadable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry,in order to perform aspects of the present invention.

Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to aprocessor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computeror other programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. These computer readable program instructionsmay also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can directa computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or otherdevices to function in a particular manner, such that the computerreadable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises anarticle of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects ofthe function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram blockor blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other deviceto cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer,other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computerimplemented process, such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement thefunctions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods, and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternativeimplementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of theorder noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in successionmay, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks maysometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon thefunctionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of theblock diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocksin the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implementedby special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specifiedfunctions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardwareand computer instructions.

While the invention has been described with reference to exemplaryembodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art thatvarious changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted forelements thereof without departing from the scope of the invention. Inaddition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular system,device or component thereof to the teachings of the invention withoutdeparting from the essential scope thereof. Therefore, it is intendedthat the invention not be limited to the particular embodimentsdisclosed for carrying out this invention, but that the invention willinclude all embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims.Moreover, the use of the terms first, second, etc. do not denote anyorder or importance, but rather the terms first, second, etc. are usedto distinguish one element from another.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularembodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. Asused herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended toinclude the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicatesotherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify thepresence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements,and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of oneor more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements,components, and/or groups thereof.

The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of allmeans or step plus function elements in the claims below, if any, areintended to include any structure, material, or act for performing thefunction in combination with other claimed elements as specificallyclaimed. The description of the present invention has been presented forpurposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to beexhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Manymodifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.The embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and the practical application, and to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention forvarious embodiments with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer program product configured todynamically generate game activities for a role-playing game, thecomputer program product comprising: a computer-readable storage device;and computer-readable program code embodied on the computer-readablestorage device, wherein the computer-readable program code, whenexecuted by a data processing system, causes the data processing systemto: load game information about a role-playing game; receive a questionfrom a player of the role-playing game; in response to receiving thequestion, dynamically generate a game activity based on the question andthe game information, wherein the game activity corresponds to a questthat is different from canned quests that are initially built into therole-playing game by a game designer; and present the game activity tothe player.
 2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein thecomputer-readable program code, when executed by the data processingsystem, is further configured to: receive a player context for theplayer in the role-playing game; and in response to the player contextchanging, adjust the game activity based on the changed player context.3. The computer program product of claim 2, wherein the data processingsystem is a question answering system and the computer-readable programcode, when executed by the question answering system, further configuresthe question answering system to: identify one or more characters, oneor more locations, and the quest based on one or more answers generatedby the question answering system in response to receiving the questionfrom the player; and present the quest to the player.
 4. The computerprogram product of claim 2, wherein the data processing system employsnatural language processing and deep semantic processing on the gameinformation to determine and generate the game activity in view of theplayer context.
 5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein thegame information comprises one or more of literature, models, rules,locations, and maps for the role-playing game.
 6. The computer programproduct of claim 1, wherein the received question asks at least one ofwho, what, when, where, and why about the game information and is usedto determine a context of the player in the game.
 7. The computerprogram product of claim 1, wherein the role-playing game is a massivemultiplayer online role-playing game.
 8. A data processing system,comprising: a cache memory; and a processor coupled to the cache memory,wherein the processor is configured to: load game information about arole-playing game; receive a question from a player of the role-playinggame; in response to receiving the question, dynamically generate a gameactivity based on the question and the game information, wherein thegame activity corresponds to a quest that is different from cannedquests that are initially built into the role-playing game by a gamedesigner; and present the game activity to the player.